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Mad4You2 Dericka Mad4You2 Dericka |
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Mad4You2 View Profile |
Update on MHD babies
Here’s an update that I sent a few friends and thought that it would be useful information to share on the forum...I have weights and pictures updates that I need to post for the last couple of months but I haven’t had time to do that yet. I wanted to get this scenario out there for anyone else that might be having babies hatch. I’ve lost a few babies. Today I went to a vet close to here in Hawkins Texas. We’ve used her for Jeff’s iguana and my male breeder BD when he needed a tail amputation. I had 4 down when I came hope from work to get them to go to the vet. I lost one from the first clutch - he had the paralyzed back end and couldn’t move his legs. The I had one in the second clutch do that and we knew that we had a couple of belly flops and thought that they had hurt their spine and had neuro damage. I had 3 babies from the second clutch that stopped eating and lost weight and both of them died. So remaining babies are 2 from the second clutch with no symptoms and 1 that is semi paralyzed. There are 3 semi paralyzed from the first clutch and 4 with no symptoms. I also have 2 from Bonnie so that makes 12. I took Stubbs the oldest from Bonnie who has nothing wrong with him and one from the first clutch that is fine and 4 sick ones and Bruja to the vet. She had never seen them before or heard of them but she listened to me and looked at my records and spent 1.5 hours with me. She said that they are showing signs of MBD, tremors ( I thought seizures) and the limbs were locking up because of the pressure from carrying their weight on their hips on the spine. I told her that I had also fed tiny mealworms a couple of days before and that also happened right before the first one from the first clutch showed symptoms. They eat them like pigs. They are too small to get blood for a calcium level and she said that they might be too small to see their bones – I don’t know if that was a limitation of her equipment – I’m used to hospital equipment that is cutting edge and I know her office doesn’t have that kind of equipment. She gave the 4 sick ones a shot of calcium subq and I gave them another tonight. We have enough for two times a day for a couple of days. She also gave me calcium gluconate syrup – full strength for the adults and a mix for the babies. I gave the well ones and the adults some of that this evening. She said to switch over to that when the babies seem to be able to move around again. I have been feeding Phoenix worms primarily and infrequently ¼ inch gutloaded and dusted crickets, gutloaded and dusted tiny mealworms and I’ve tried to get them to eat earthworms. I have a 5.0 MVB on them along with a 60 w incandescent bulb on a thermostat. I took them down from a 10.0 because of the research that came out from the UK and damage to their eyes. I keep the temps with a daytime temp gradient of 72 - 82 for self regulation. I have a fountain in the enclosure, mist 2-3 x day and keep the humidity around 80% almost all the time. I have papertowels for a substrate. They have multiple vines and they are in an ExoTerra 18x24x24. Tonight there were 4 of them that could move their legs and didn’t have them lock up. The vet suggested keeping them in deli cups or sandwich containers for several weeks to keep them still. I have them like that now in a big tub sitting on a heating pad on low it’s about 78-80 degrees. I’m going to see how they are tomorrow. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks! Angie |
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| 01/12/08 01:05am |
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Dericka View Profile |
Message To: Mad4You2 In reference to Message Id: 1576502 Update on MHD babies
I don’t think I have any helpful suggestions, it sounded to me like you are doing everything perfect, though I haven’t raised any baby lizards from birth yet...My only thoughts are, maybe the babies don’t get close enought to the UV light for enough time, it’s not very effective more than 12" away, so maybe they don’t sit high enough up? I think I would give them more crickets than worms, though phoenix worms are supposed to have very high calcium... Also I have both a 2.0 and a 5.0 UV bulb on my adults, but I don’t see how that would make a difference. Are you giving the adults the calcium just as a precaution? I would definatley give the rest of the babies extra calcium... that’s my only thoughts, keep us updated and post some pics! deri |
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| 01/13/08 08:30pm |
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Mad4You2 View Profile |
Message To: Dericka In reference to Message Id: 1577648 Update on MHD babies
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| 01/14/08 12:19am |
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Dericka View Profile |
Message To: Mad4You2 In reference to Message Id: 1578021 Update on MHD babies
It must be so hard to see you’re babies like that:( I hope for them to recover fully and grow to be as beautiful as adults as they are babies! deri |
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| 01/14/08 11:30pm |
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